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Cricket Players'All I could think of was of 2014. I saw Anderson running with the ball and in my mind, I was like...': Kohli recalls
Virat Kohli admitted that the horrors of that tour haunted him till he buried the ghosts of 2014 with a scintillating 149 in the 2018 series opener in Edgbaston.
Despite the milestones he reached and the records he broke, Virat Kohli, up until 2018, was given a constant reminder of the 2014 England tour. It had remained the only blip in his career, having scored 134 runs in 10 innings, the highest knock being 39, with five single-digit scores. The India batting legend later admitted that the horrors of that tour haunted him till he buried the ghosts of 2014 with a scintillating 149 in the 2018 series opener in Edgbaston.
Speaking on the RCB Podcast Season 2, Kohli recalled how he was greeted by the Edgbaston crowd which gave him a flashback of the 2014 tour.
“My heart was pumping because all I could think of was the flashes of 2014. I walked in and there were about 35,000 people at the stadium and they all started booing the moment I entered the field. My heart started beating faster. They have this amazing ability to create an environment where you feel like I have got no chance here,” recalled Kohli.
The wrecker-in-chief of Kohli 2014 campaign was England great James Anderson, who dismissed him four times and revealed to the world the former India captain's weakness in the format. But Kohli was a different batter when he arrived in England four years after that tour. And with a bit of luck, he survived the early scare from the fast bowler to reach his maiden ton in England. With the impressive 149, there was no looking back for Kohli as he amassed 593 runs in the 2018 tour with two tons and three fifties.
“I remember James Anderson was the guy running with the ball, and I was like, what are the odds here I am facing the first ball from him again after four years. In my mind, I was like ‘please just play the first ball and he bowled it at the fourth stump and I left that ball’. I became calm after that first ball and then I got dropped at 22. I could have got out on 22 in that innings but I got 149 and I didn’t look back from there, so that’s when you realised that you just can’t sit there and crib about things that didn’t go right. There are a lot of things that went right. So much wait was lifted from my shoulder,” he said.
The 33-year-old further revealed that England tour had gotten him so nervous that he had thought of skipping IPL and had signed a contract with County side Surrey as well before his plan of getting an early preparation for the series was ruined owing to an injury.
“I was going to play county cricket before the 2018 series. I was a bit nervous because I thought I needed to prepare more. But then I had a neck issue in 2018 I fell ill in one of the IPL games and I could not go there because It aggravated,” said Kohli.
